


Thy Bield Should be my Bosom

by svana_vrika



Category: Free!
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Bottom Nanase Haruka, Boys In Love, Childhood Friends, Class Differences, Disowned, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Literary References & Allusions, Love Story, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Explicit Sex, Period Piece, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Scotland, Starting Over, Top Tachibana Makoto, allusions to other canon characters, deliberate ambiguities, growing up is hard to do, laird and servant, makoharu - Freeform, servitude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:15:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25380721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svana_vrika/pseuds/svana_vrika
Summary: There are some things worth giving everything for, and nothing more so than the love of a lifetime.
Relationships: Nanase Haruka/Tachibana Makoto
Comments: 12
Kudos: 39
Collections: #ficwip 5k





	Thy Bield Should be my Bosom

**Author's Note:**

> [benicemurphy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/benicemurphy) invited me to participate in this challenge, because we both like to frequently tease that I can't say _hello_ in less than 500 words lol. It was a bit daunting, the thought of managing a fleshed- out fic knowing that I had a word cap, but I thought I'd give it a shot. The style, and the story itself, are different than anything I've written for MakoHaru, but I'm pleased with it, and I managed it under the word count! \O/ 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, too!

Makoto has known him all his life, the boy with the sky-blue eyes. Haruka is what he was named, but Haruka doesn’t like it. He likes Haru, instead, so that’s what Makoto calls him. Every day he comes, and every day they play amongst the grasses that Haru says reminds _him_ of _Makoto’s_ eyes. Makoto thinks that it’s special and neat that they each have eyes that remind the other of something so vast and lovely. He tells Haru so, and the smile Haru gives him as he shyly agrees makes Makoto’s heart beat as fast as birds’ wings. 

“I love Haru, Mama,” Makoto tells her that night between bath time and bed, and Mama smiles at him, pats him on the head, calls him a good boy for loving everybody. Makoto’s head tilts in confusion because that wasn’t what he’d said, but Mama slips out of his room before he can tell her again.

The next day is another bright and pretty one and, as always, Haru comes. Makoto waves and waves as he walks up the path with his grandma, and when Haru joins him, they run off to play in the great grasses between the house and hills. There are clouds today, so they climb the closest knoll and lay atop it, tell each other what they see in the fluffy shapes. Haru’s hand looks tiny in the grasses, Makoto thinks, so he takes it with his pudgier one, and the bird’s wings beat in his chest again when Haru’s cheeks turn pink and he looks away. Haru’s prettier than the tiny pink flowers in the garden and, breathlessly, Makoto tells him so, which makes Haru’s cheeks grow brighter.

“Bog rosemary,” he mumbles, and Makoto’s eyes go round for how smart Haru is at just six, but then Haru tells him that those flowers do best with the sun, so maybe that’s why he and Makoto get along since Makoto’s as bright and strong as one.

Makoto doesn’t know about strong; to him, Haru’s always the braver, but it makes his heart leap anyway. “I love Haru,” he blurts from the joy of it and, lest Haru misunderstand like Mama had, he puts a kiss to Haru’s cheek to show him that Haru’s the most special of all, no matter how many people Makoto loves. Haruka doesn’t say anything, just tightens his fingers harder though Makoto’s, but a barely there kiss to Makoto’s cheek several minutes later lets him know that Haru had understood, and that he feels it, too.

Many, many happy days pass as such, and the ones spent outside are Makoto’s favorite. Everything’s fresh and large and lovely out there and it’s always just him and Haru. When it’s too wet or cold to be outdoors, things are a bit different. Haru is quieter, a bit more withdrawn, no matter how Makoto cajoles him, and there just isn’t a good place to play. Mama’s bedroom and the fancy room are always off limits to Makoto, and Mama has a big word for why they can’t play in Makoto’s room. _Appropriate_ , he thinks it is, but he doesn’t like how it makes him feel, never mind how hard it is to say it, so he doesn’t. He just comes up with the most fun things he can think to play in the dining room while Haru’s grandmother helps the other ladies in the kitchen.

Makoto is seven and Haru is eight when Makoto finds out what _appropriate_ means. Mama introduces the strange man in the dining room as his tutor and tells Makoto that he’ll be coming for a few hours every day to teach Makoto things like maths and writing. Makoto is only half-listening because Haru’s not there, and he should be, and does Mama know? Mama smiles and pats him on the head, but it’s not as nice as it used to be. He’s getting older, she says, and she says he’ll be Laird someday, after Papa, so he needs to start Learning Things. 

“Why can’t Haru learn, too?” he demands, and Mama’s smile falters.

“Haru?”

“A township boy,” she explains to the strange man, the tutor, and then she talks about things like tenants and rent, and Haru’s grandmother being too aged to work the runrigs so she tends garden and helps in the kitchens when it’s cold. “They’re one of our oldest families, and it seems I was a bit too indulgent for too long in letting the two play together.”

“Indulgent? Mama, what does—”

Makoto is cut off when the tutor makes a very fake sounding laugh and then tells Mama that, with her leave, he’ll explain. Mama gives the man a much more real smile than she had Makoto a moment ago and then slips from the room.

It isn’t more than a minute before Makoto’s running out, too, but to the kitchen instead. _Indulgent_ means Mama had spoiled him, and he supposes he’s okay with that, but _appropriate_ means wrong, and he doesn’t like that at all. Makoto can’t, he can’t, he _won’t_ believe that playing with Haru _anywhere_ is wrong, and he’ll prove it by finding out where Haru is and taking him to his room to play _right now._ But as soon as he bursts through the door, he stops, because Haru is in the kitchen, his pretty face smattered with maybe flour and ash and he’s just as busy as all the ladies are in there.

“Haru, come play!” he calls almost desperately, but then a hand claps down on his shoulder and the tutor is there with his, _young master, please,_ as his and Haru’s eyes meet. Haru looks away from him almost as quickly.

It’s two whole days before Makoto can sneak time with Haru alone, and he hates every minute of them; of the tutor, and Mama’s fake smiles and dismissive pats, and of Haru—his most important, _most loved person in the world_ —bringing him and the tutor their lunches with his bows and his silence. Makoto hates it so much that he doesn’t care how cold it is outside or how Mama and Papa both have warned him about leaving the house by himself at night when its dark or going to be. He slips out anyway and waits by the end of the drive ‘til he’s shivering and so, so cold, but finally Haru and his grandmother come, and Makoto goes running toward them.

“Makoto,” Haru breathes in surprise but, before he can say anything more, Makoto has his hands and is pulling him close into a hug as he tells him how much he hates it, that he doesn’t want to be a laird like papa or even a laird’s son if he has to treat people different than himself, and especially if wanting to be with, to play with, to love Haru is wrong. He’s about crying when he’s done, and he knows that boys aren’t supposed to, but he doesn’t care about that, either. Haru’s seen him cry before over things that seem small and stupid now compared to this _huge_ thing, but Haru’s never laughed at or scolded him. He’s only ever petted through his hair and told him it’ll be fine, just like he’s doing now.

“Promise?” Makoto asks with a sniffle against Haru’s shoulder, and Haru nods, his soft, smooth cheek lightly rubbing over Makoto’s one eye and ear.

“Promise.”

And the next three years go by thus. They don’t play so much anymore because, while they meet whenever they can, it’s usually only for a few minutes here or there and they’re too busy talking about how they are and how their days are going, and being mindful of any watchful eyes. It’s not the same, and Makoto resents that, but at least Haru knows how he feels, and one of the things he talks most about is how he’ll change things when he’s the laird; how he’ll let people be friends with and love whomever they please. Haru listens to him with a sort of awe every time he says it, and every time, he smiles at the end and tells Makoto he’s brave and strong and that, if anyone can do it, he can.

Twin babies come to the house during this time and Makoto loves them, but the nursery is no place for the young master, he’s told by his tutor and the nursery maid alike, so he barely sees them. He worries to Haru that they don’t know who he is and Haru tells him that they’ll grow someday, and they’ll get to know him then. 

“Haru’s so wise,” Makoto says with stars and love in his eyes and that pretty pink shows on Haru’s cheeks, still so soft and pale despite how Haru’s hands are red and work-roughened more often than not now.

“Idiot,” Haru chides softly, but with a small smile, and then footsteps are heard and Makoto sighs and turns away, only to turn back on a whim and kiss Haru’s cheek as he used to when they’d lie on their hill, beneath the sun, before hurrying back to his studies.

Makoto is told he’s being sent to the city for schooling shortly after he turns ten. He stands stiffly, eyes brimming with tears that he’s learned best to not let fall, fingernails cutting crescents into his palms. _I don’t want to go!_ he wants to cry out, but he knows better than that as well, so he simply stands there, nodding and saying _yes, sir,_ when he should until Father gives his permission to leave them.

Tipping his chin to his chest, Makoto excuses himself, makes himself keep to a walk, though he really wants to run, run as far away as he can from this life that is full of unfairness and spent doing things he doesn’t want. As he closes the door, he hears Mother murmur something about _his place over the servants,_ and then he _is_ running, because his heart can’t take anymore. He leaves the house and flees to the stable, his refuge when it’s too cold for the moors, and the cats all come running and Makoto scoops the closest one up to cuddle with as he plops onto the haystack and lets himself cry about it all.

Eventually, Makoto feels fingers through his hair and, at first, the tears come harder, because it’s Haru, he knows it is, and he has to leave him and _oh_ his heart is already broken because of it and he hasn’t even left him yet. “How’d you know?” he asks after a few seconds, though he doesn’t lift his head or open his eyes.

“Grandmother saw you,” Haru explains, still petting through his hair, and Makoto smiles despite himself, because Haru’s grandmother is always watching out for and taking care of them both, more than Makoto’s mother ever has for him. He sniffles a couple of times and then runs his hand over his eyes. Haru promptly takes it when it falls, not minding how damp it is and, after a slow, shaky breath, Makoto tells him.

Haru sits still, very still, almost _not-breathing_ still, and Makoto’s heart starts to break again, but then Haru takes a quiet breath of his own and tells Makoto that it’ll be fine. “You’ll come back for the summers, right? And we work for your father, grandmother and me. It’s not like I’ll be going anywhere.” But Haru’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes as he speaks, and Makoto isn’t certain why; if it’s because he’s going away or because Haru isn’t free to.

The years seem to run into each other after Makoto is sent away. He learns, more than he ever had imagined he would, about maths and writing and reading and history, yes, but about other things as well. He learns to shoot, which he loathes, but is a skill expected of a _man of his station_ , and he learns to dance and to ride, both of which he absolutely adores. He learns things that, per his teachers and professors, will help him to be a better laird, like finance, what to look for in a bride, and how to properly manage one’s land and servants.

He learns to keep his thoughts to himself when it comes to things like those; learns that he is a minority of one in his issues with the injustices of their world.

He comes home every summer and, every summer, as soon as he’s able, he goes to Haru. The first few aren’t so bad; they find decent time together, Makoto filling him in on every little thing he’s learned and Haru telling him stories of what he’s missed when he’d been gone. It’s funny though, Makoto thinks, as he stands out on their hill one day. No matter how much time he gets with Haru, it never seems enough, but beyond missing him so dreadfully, they’re truly just the same. Well, other than Haru getting more and more beautiful every time Makoto goes away. Makoto colors with the thought because, at fourteen, he’s old enough to know what it means, why Haru’s on his mind all the time and why thoughts of his blush and soft voice, his gentle fingers and press of soft lips against his cheek make him warmer than the thought of any _girl_ ever could.

Toward the end of that summer, Makoto returns from a ride to find Haru in the stable, waiting. He grins at first, but it falls as soon as he sees Haru’s face, and he puts his horse in its stall without bothering to tend to it. As he turns, Haru’s right there, a sob catching in his throat as he falls into Makoto and clings to him, and when Makoto finally finds out why, he cries, too. Haru’s grandmother is gone, the sweet old woman who’d only ever treated Makoto like another boy, who’d watched out for them, who’d turned a blind eye and ear to them. And it kills Makoto a bit more than usual to say goodbye to Haru at that summer’s end because, for the first time, he’s leaving Haru truly alone.

The summer of Makoto’s fifteenth year, everything changes again. There’s a ball to welcome him home, one planned to send him away, and mother has promised him to each one scheduled for the young ladies coming out. Father demands most of his time in between to take him to check on the runrigs and tenants, livestock and crops, but worse than either of those things, Haru is no longer at the house. Makoto’s gut gnaws that first night as he wonders what had happened, and he sneaks to the stable with first daylight, hoping on everything that, wherever he’d been sent, Haru will find his way there.

Haru does and Makoto is so overjoyed that he pulls him into a hug before greeting him, and he never really does properly because his questions tumble out of his mouth before he’s even pulled back.

“I’m sixteen now, Makoto,” Haruka reminds him, “A man, and old enough to marry. There’s no place for a man in the laird’s gardens or kitchens, and I don’t know enough about the horses or falcons to be of any use there. Working the runrigs for your father is the only thing I can do so that I can stay.”

Hot, angry tears rise in Makoto’s eyes, but Haru steps close, gently brushes them away. “I don’t mind it,” he says. “It’s all I’ve known since eight, serving others, and it keeps me close to you.” He gives a small smile. “I do wish I could have seen you dressed for your ball, though.”

“I hate them,” Makoto says vehemently, though it’s only been the one, and he catches Haru’s hand as it drops from his cheek. “I don’t want them.”

“Why not?” Haru asks, voice gentle as always, but there’s an undercurrent there that causes Makoto’s eyes to water again.

“You know why!” he declares in a desperate whisper, and then Haru is smiling, soft and sweet and Makoto’s world balances again.

“Ah. I do.” His cheeks pink then, and he drops his gaze. “I don’t wish to marry, either. There’s only one that I’d troth myself to, and I can’t.”

“Haru.” Catching Haru’s chin and drawing it up, Makoto dips his head and kisses him. It’s awkward and their noses bump, but they figure it out soon enough, and then it’s perfect, the wetness and heat and Haru’s sweet taste on his lips and tongue, and it’s only the horses growing restless for their breakfast that breaks them apart, flushed and breathless. But for as good and amazing and right as it feels, Makoto’s heart is broken a little, too, and it breaks a little more every time he thinks of Haru’s words, because of all the things he’ll try and change when he becomes Laird, that’s the one thing he’s old enough now to know that he can’t.

At the end of that summer, before his sendoff ball, Makoto talks to his parents about university. He wants it for all the wrong reasons, truth told, but he can’t hardly stand the thought of being home year round, Mother dangling him out like some sort of prize while Father drags him about trying to force his archaic ways and beliefs. University will buy him another two away. They agree to send him, and Makoto feels a bit guilty, but mostly proud for the story he’d woven—and then Father calls him out before he goes, tell him he can’t run from his responsibility and birthright forever, that he’ll _have_ to man up and learn to be hard and to do what it takes to take care of the lands and his lairdship when its bestowed.

University starts after Hogmanay once Makoto has turned sixteen, and while it’s what he’d wanted, it’s also so much harder than being away for just school had been. He doesn’t drink or smoke or gamble, has no interest in wooing, or bedding, girls, but he does his best to hide his distaste for it all by focusing on his studies and, for the most part, the other men leave him alone. They see him as stupid and dull, and it stings some because he’s always struggled with his self-worth a bit, but in the long run, their perceptions of him and his house really mean nothing to him. The only thing that does is Haru, and Haru loves him as he is, always has.

That’s the hardest part of University; he’s away from Haru even more because he’s home for much smaller stretches. But they meet when they can between the balls Mother persists on and Father dragging him about, and there’s desperation in the way they hold and kiss and touch each other now as, in between, they whisper of hopes and dreams that they both know, but both refuse to say aloud, will likely never come to fruition.

Makoto graduates the spring after he turns eighteen, and while part of him is proud, most of him is filled with dread. There’s no more schooling to be done, nothing left for him to do but go home, except to run away, and he can’t. He can’t leave Haru and he can’t take Haru with him, not without the means to take care of him, to provide. But as soon as he’s home, he runs anyway, right to Haru’s cottage.

He’s near exhausted when he gets there and, calling him an idiot, Haru pulls him in, pulls him down into the one chair, stokes the fire. He comes with tea a few minutes later but he’s barely sat it down when Makoto pulls on him in turn, drawing him into his lap so that he can kiss him. Haru’s sweet taste floods him and he runs his hands down Haru’s back, wrapping them around his slender waist, thumbs rubbing over his hip bones through his sleep shirt. He’s missed this, god, he’s missed this so much, and Haru has too, he knows, because Haru turns to straddle him, lips plush and parted, cheeks rosy, burying his hands in Makoto’s hair as they kiss again and he rocks down against Makoto’s groin.

They’ve found release together before, against each other like this, or with each other’s hands, but there’s something in the air, something deep within them both, a combination of dread and fear, love and lust, that’s driving them. Makoto lets Haru ride his lap for a moment and then he stands, carries Haru over to the narrow bed, lays him down. Haru’s eyes are still the color of the sky, only black as the night in his want. Makoto’s heart beats as fast as birds’ wings again as he helps Haru out of his sleep shirt and then strips himself to the sight of Haru naked and hard and reaching for him, pale skin flushed that beautiful pink.

Makoto lays over him, kissing him, touching him, calling him _beautiful_ and _perfect_ and _mine_. Haru tells him he is, that Makoto’s his too, always has been, that he loves him, and there are tears in both their eyes, from the bliss of their love, from the cruelty of a world that won’t let them be together for too many reasons that mean nothing yet everything to them. “We will,” Makoto promises in a voice harsher than Haru’s ever heard. “I’ll find a way and we will.” And after leaving the words branded against Haru’s lips, his own travel down Haru’s body, kissing him in places he’s only ever dreamed, tasting his chest, his stomach, his thighs, moaning softly as his mouth and tongue become acquainted with Haru’s most intimate places. And when Haru’s finally ready for him, soft and open and breathily pleading, Makoto pushes into his tight, wet heat and claims him.

Surrounded by Haru, two joined as one, he finds out what it is to truly be home. 

After they make love, Makoto tends to Haru and then lays with him. He lays as long as he dares, half drifting to the sensation of Haru’s fingers carding through his hair, but he can only delay going home for so long and he eventually gets up. “I’ll be back,” he promises Haru after a last tender kiss, and then he slips out from his cottage and hurries through the darkened fields toward the laird’s house.

It’s early enough yet that the servants aren’t even stirring, and Makoto goes to his room, lightly dozes until the maid’s knock comes to his door. The girl welcomes him home as she fills his basin and then tells him breakfast is being laid out. He thanks her, steels himself while he washes, and then goes downstairs. The food is warm and filling, but the meal itself is cool as he holds stilted conversation with his parents, and he longs for the days when his brother and sister were still home, for the days before that when Haru and he could freely be together, when they’d not known that there was a difference between them and that loving each other would be considered wrong by most and on multiple levels.

He breathes a sigh of relief once the meal’s cleared away, but he’s told to stay before he can excuse himself, and he readies himself the best he can for talk of balls and rounding through the tenants. Instead, his father tells him they need to talk about Makoto’s _overt disregard for his position_. Makoto pales and his stomach churns because he’s worked hard and has been dutiful except for his feelings for and trysts with Haru, and he’d been as careful as he could, they both had. But then Father tells him about Mother’s uncle—a bachelor for as long as he’s lived—who raises horses and has managed to make a name for himself in it. He has similar tastes as Makoto, Father says, and Makoto’s cheeks warm because he can tell from the look Father gives him that he means beyond their love for the beasts, and apparently he and Haru hadn’t been as careful as they’d thought.

This great uncle had written Mother and Father; had asked them to let him take their youngest son as an heir. His health is failing, he’d never had children and his trade is too profitable with too promising of a future to let it just die with him. “I’m giving you a choice,” Father says then, and Makoto’s gut twists tighter. “You cease your proclivities and fall into line, or you surrender your birthright to your brother and I send you in his stead.

Makoto’s jaw drops with the choice that really _isn’t,_ because there’s only one answer he can give. How can he stop being who he is at his core, not only in his love for Haru, but for his morals, his beliefs; for everything that makes him different from this wretched role into which he’d been born? But from his father’s derisive snort, it’s obvious that he doesn’t need to speak it.

“I thought as much,” he nearly sneers. “It’s been clear for years that, despite everything your mother and I have done to guide you toward a proper life, you have neither the strength nor desire for it. So fine.” His father stands and deliberately puts his back to his eldest son. “Come the morning, you’ll leave our name here and you can take his when you get there. We’ll tell family, the tenants and society that you’ve left to seek your fortune in that new continent we’ve been hearing about and that your brother will inherit the lairdship, and we’ll be done with it, your mother and I.”

His mother rises without a word to join his father; they move to the door together, and myriad emotions chase through Makoto’s head and heart so fast that he can’t catch them. Humiliation and hurt for being rejected for who he is, for being stripped of his name and for having his family turn their backs on him, but there’s hope there, too, actual hope, like a seedling through the rubble, versus the empty words he and Haru have been holding onto for years. And when his father pauses to tell him that he’s also evicting Haru from his tenancy lest he _continue to corrupt_ , that seedling sprouts into a blossom fed by the heat of Makoto’s anger at the injustice of it all, but also by a subtle undercurrent of joy. 

Makoto and Haru are eighteen when, together, they leave the township, one horse and two satchels of belongings between them. As they ride out, through the grasses the color of Makoto eyes and beneath the sky the color of Haru’s, Makoto feels happier, more loved, more at peace, more at home than ever, though he leaves his birthright, his family, his name behind. Because he has everything with him.

_Or were I in the wildest waste,_ _  
Sae black and bare, sae black and bare,  
The desert were a Paradise,  
If thou wert there, if thou wert there._

**Author's Note:**

> Title and ending borrowed from Robert Burns' _O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast_
> 
> [O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast](http://robertburnsfederation.com/poems/translations/o_wert_thou_in_the_cauld_blast.htm)


End file.
